What tools do you use to increase efficiency and productivity for SQL Development

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Brimstedt asked Mar 11, '10

What tools do you use to increase efficiency and productivity for SQL Development

What tools do you use to increase SQL development productivity?

For writing procedures, doing ad-hoc queries, etc, I find SSMS the best tool of those that I've tried, but I still find it a poor tool for many reasons (bad intellisense, to limited in aspects to external tools and keybaord shortcuts, to mention a couple)

So, what tools and plugins do you use, free and commercial, big or small?

developer development client-tools

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Answer 1 · 2010-03-11T07:25:54Z

CirqueDeSQLeil answered Mar 11, '10

Redgate has an intellisense (SQL Prompt) that seems to be decent - but a resource hog. TOAD for SQL is nice to help give you a plethora of alternative ways to write the same query (helps in tuning sometimes)

Other than those, for writing TSQL, I use SSMS (2005 and prefer 2008)

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Grant Fritchey ♦♦ · Mar 11, 2010 at 10:46 AM

I'm not excited by TOAD, but I had to give you the vote up for SQL Prompt. Probably the best productivity and development tools for writing TSQL.

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Answer 2 · 2010-03-11T08:05:14Z

Matt Whitfield answered Mar 11, '10

My T-SQL IDE! Surprisingly enough, I get on with it quite well - but I'm very focused on writing T-SQL, and not really managing / using visual table editors etc.

The idea was to bring the intellisense level up to Visual Studio standards - although the language definition of SQL doesn't make that possible sometimes because of it's vagueness (a very basic example being the three different ways to assign an alias to a column). But it is free for personal use, so the price tag is good. :)

For generation of lots of client side code at once, I've been using Apex SQL Code a bit recently too - they've released it free now, and it's quite richly featured, definitely worth a look.

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Fatherjack ♦♦ · Mar 11, 2010 at 08:08 AM

+1 - thanks for the tipoff about Apex, I didnt know it was free now, I also didnt know you have a TSQL IDE. Off to d/l now :)

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Answer 3 · 2010-03-11T08:07:23Z

Fatherjack answered Mar 11, '10

I use SSMS but with SQL Prompt that CirqueDeSQLeil mentions. In fact I have the whole SQL Toolbelt from RedGate so I have tools that sit within SSMS to give me lots of extra functionality - object level restores, smart renaming of objects (dependant objects get re-scripted too), Test data generator, SQL Prompt 'intellisense' (**), Data comparison + Database schema comparison with script generation to synchronise, Database documentor and so on. I also install LogParser, Idera's Job Scheduler, Winmerge, and PowerShellAnalyser to list a few of the free apps that are available.

** - I havent experienced any resource issues using SQL Prompt personally but accept that everyones mileage may vary. I would say try the 14 day trial and see how it goes.

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Matt Whitfield ♦♦ · Mar 11, 2010 at 08:20 AM

+1 - you are one majorly tooled up developer!

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Fatherjack ♦♦ · Mar 11, 2010 at 08:36 AM

So thats what they meant!!!

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TimothyAWiseman · Mar 11, 2010 at 11:02 AM

I was a huge fan of SQL Prompt with SSMS 2005. With SSMS 2008 connecting to a 2008 server I find it less useful, but some of its re factoring tools still come in handy at times. I am also a huge fan of Red Gate SQL Backup and SQL Compare.

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Answer 4 · 2010-03-11T09:44:39Z

Håkan Winther answered Mar 11, '10

I use SQL Server Management Studio (Intellisence in SQL server 2008) or Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 DB Edition. Sometimes, when I am not developing for SQL server 2008, I use Red-Gate Toolbelt.

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Answer 5 · 2010-12-15T02:05:01Z

ThomasRushton answered Dec 15, '10

I've just started using TOAD. Not yet getting fully into the swing of it, but it does seem to do the Intellisense stuff better than SQLWB / SSMS. Which is helpful. Just seen an in-built "take-your-results-and-build-your-own-pivot" thing which I may have to play with later. That could make it worth every penny, if you do a lot of that sort of thing. No idea how it delivers in terms of "bang per buck", because of a rather decent licence deal!

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Answer 6 · 2013-08-09T08:10:37Z

AlexTheDeveloper answered Aug 9, '13

I recommend [**SQL Hunting Dog**][1] It is a plugin for SQL Server Management Studio 2008 or 2012 and it gives you quick search and smooth navigation between your tables, stored procedures, functions and view. [1]: http://www.sql-hunting-dog.com

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Kev Riley ♦♦ · Aug 09, 2013 at 10:42 AM

You should add a disclaimer that this is your own product, otherwise this could be removed as advertising spam

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